Saturday, April 25, 2009

Bataan Nuclear Power Plant

Bataan Nuclear Power Plant- Awakening a Sleeping Monster
Commentary
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Felicito C. Payumo
February 6, 2009

Days before the suggestion to revive the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was carried by the newspapers, I already received a text message which said, “What was unsafe 20 years ago cannot be made safe by Congressional action,” or words to that effect. That sent me digging into the papers I delivered during the 8th Congress which revealed that there’s nothing new in the reprise of the issue; the arguments remain the same, whether here in our country or elsewhere.
The arguments against the nuclear plant were well presented in a newspaper editorial. The most often mentioned by the local people who have taken to the streets is that the site sits on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin, and is therefore prone to seismic upheaval. Although nuclear plants can be built to withstand tremblors, the public remains unconvinced, especially after a recent quake in Japan caused radio active leaks in a nuclear plant at Kashiwazaki City. Can we imagine what would have happened if such a disaster occcured here, where the concern for public safety is plain lacking? That in itself is a strong argument for opposing the nuclear plant. With corruption extant in almost all sectors, what if the money intended for safety measures is stolen or reduced for “kickbacks?” Also, the location is in a densely populated part of the country, which makes the safety risks greater, as the smallest incident can claim a large number of lives.
These arguments were not those in the Inquirer editorial, and the plant referred to was not the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) in Morong, Bataan. It was the Jakarta Post firing a salvo against the plan to build the first nuclear plant in Indonesia in 2010 at Mt. Muria, Jepara, Central Java, where dozens of ulema gathered and came out with a verdict against the nuclear plant, declaring it haram, or forbidden by Islamic law, arguing the potential hazards far outweigh the benefits. Concerned about safety issues and the handling of radioactive wastes, around 1,000 residents near the site chased away the State Minister of Research and Technology who conducted a public hearing. The Morong residents, in contrast, were far more polite to the Congressional delegation that conducted the hearing recently at Morong but may take the cue from the Jepara residents next time.
If something can go wrong, sooner or later it will, according to Murphy’s Law. Nuclear facilities, whether operated in Third World or First World countries, are not beyond the reach of this Law. Chernobyl showed it. Three-Mile Island proved it. And Kashiwazaki, which discharged 50% more radiation than earlier reported, confirmed it. Thus, those opposed to nuclear power plants do not say incidents are likely to happen, they just say they can and do happen. Now, let me read a chilling account of what could happen in a nuclear plant incident:
“By 1:23 26 April 1986, the combination of all fundamental violations of safety rules had made Unit 4 unstable. Power output was rising, and the technicians were rapidly losing control of what was now a runaway reactor. At 1:23:30 part of the reactor suffered a ‘prompt neutron power burst.’
Within 4 seconds, Unit 4 reached 100 times normal power and may have come close to an atomic explosion. Some of the fuel disintegrated and evaporated the cooling water. This caused a steam explosion which blasted apart the 1000 ton lid of Unit 4. Flaming reactor debris showered on to adjoining buildings, starting more than 30 fires. More water reacted with the red hot, 1700 -ton graphite core to generate hydrogen gas, which detonated into a second explosion, hurling radioactive debris and radionucleids a mile into the sky.
By this time, a quarter of the graphite core was alight, sending more radioactivity into the sky. It would take 10 days of truly heroic effort for the burning reactor to be brought into control. To dampen the fire and contain the radioactivity, helicopters dropped more than 5000 tons of lead, boron and other materials on to the exposed core, but up to 26 per cent of the reactor’s inventory of radioactivity was lost, nonetheless. So were the lives of 31 firemen and plant workers, most of whom were covered in severe radiation burns.
Work began on the entombment of the reactor. Coal miners were drafted in to build a ‘cooling slab’ under Unit 4 . This alone was a mammoth operation conducted at breakneck speed under hazardous conditions. By 24 June, 400 men, working 3-hour shifts had built the 168 m long reinforced concrete tunnel and installed the monolithic concrete slab. The entombment of the plant involved the building of a giant ‘sarcophagus’ containing more than 7,000 tons of steel and 410,000 cu m of concrete. The giant construction was completed in November 1986, (seven months from the date of the incident).”
This was what actually happened in Chernobyl. If it had happened here, could we have reacted that fast? But let me ask first, do we have the resources and the technology to deploy? The cost of the Chernobyl disaster was 8 billion roubles and still rising when reported, the most expensive accident on the planet. (Comparatively, the Three- Mile Island accident, an earlier disaster also far more dangerous than was made public, cost a conservative $2.1 billion, including cleaning up, entombment and decommissioning-three times as much as what it had cost to build the plant.)
Chernobyl aftermath
After flying over an evacuated village in Chernobyl, Soviet film maker Vladimir Gurbayev wrote, “The sun was shining brightly and everything was brilliant white. But in the village, there was no life. Not a single path to be seen across the snow, not a single chimney smoking.” This was after 135,000 people and 86,000 heads of cattle were evacuated from the 30-km-diameter zone in an evacuation column of 1216 large buses and 300 trucks stretched 15 kms rushing pell-mell out of the disaster area- a 1000 sq km of contaminated land around the Chernobyl reactor. More than 60,000 buildings in 500 residential communities required decontamination. Three million curies of caesium-137 or uranium radionucleids fell, a total amount comparable to the fall out from all atmospheric weapons tests todate. Studies showed that globally, up to one million people may die from cancer induced by exposure to radiation from Chernobyl. None of these include other grave health effects such as non-fatal cancers, mental retardation or genetic abnormalities of humans borne with flipper-size limbs, piglets without eyes and calves with 8 legs.
Radiation Roullete
Bataan is only 35 kms in breadth. Morong had no exit to the north until the chain to the Subic –Morong gate was cut by President Joseph Estrada. And Manila is no more than 30 kms away from Bataan’s eastern shores. The easterly winds (amihan) normally blows through Bataan towards Vietnam. But the south- west monsoon winds (habagat) can turn mean and blow the deadly air towards the east or north. We find little comfort that Manilans and Bulakenyos or Zambalenos and Pampanguenos will join Bataenos as victims of the deadly radiation fallout roulette.


Nuclear Waste
Contrary to some perception nuclear energy is not clean. Its waste is most deadly and cannot just be dumped. The process of creating nuclear fuel doesn’t work in the reverse. Uranium cannot be dispersed back into the ore and buried. Newsweek reported that “so potent is the fear of nuclear material that the US Government has not yet found a state to accept it. NIMBY (Not in my backyard) has become NOPE (Not on planet earth). Meanwhile, technicians of nuclear plants have to maintain the pumps that carry away waste heat, watch the gauges, and patrol fences 24 hours a day. For how long? For 10,000 years or until governments find sites for nuclear waste dumps, whichever comes first.”

Felicito C. Payumo was former Chairman/Administrator of Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, and a three-term Representative of the First District of Bataan where the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is located.